Ellie Ames 24 June 2024

Hampshire set to quit transport partnership

Hampshire set to quit transport partnership image
Image: Andy Soloman / Shutterstock.com

Officers have recommended that Hampshire County Council withdraws from a transport partnership involving three other local authorities.

Hampshire pays £90,000 a year to Solent Transport, which was established in 2007.

But officers said the partnership no longer offered value for money.

The county council is also a member of Transport for the South East, and officers advised that there is too much overlap between the functions of the two bodies.

If Hampshire’s members agree to withdraw from Solent Transport, two staff employed by the local authority to coordinate the partnership’s work would be put at risk of redundancy.

Isle of Wight Council and Portsmouth and Southampton city councils, the other partner authorities, have urged Hampshire not to withdraw.

They said Solent Transport worked to make the Solent area ‘greener, healthier, and more prosperous’, and had brought in more than £150m in funding bids in the last decade.

But Hampshire said most of this funding had come about through ‘effective bi-lateral partnership working’ between the councils, rather than through Solent Transport. 

Hampshire members have been recommended to allow the council to withdraw with effect from April next year at the latest, and will discuss the issue at a meeting on Thursday.

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